


making up for lost time

by blackorchids



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bakery and Coffee Shop, Baking, F/M, Ficlet, Fluff, Future Fic, Post-Fantastic Beasts, Short & Sweet, Temporary Amnesia, oblivious Jacob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-21 21:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13152072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackorchids/pseuds/blackorchids
Summary: There's a beautiful girl visiting Jacob's shop every day, and his assistant is poking fun about it, but Jacob can't help but feel there's something different about her. Something...magical.





	making up for lost time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reveetoile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reveetoile/gifts).



> title from taylor swift's _everything has changed_

Greyson comes bursting into the tiny kitchen stuffed into the back of _Kowalski Quality Baked Goods_ , huge shit-eating grin on his face as he smirks at Jacob over the floured counter.

“You look like a right cad like that, Grey,” Jacob says, mostly just to ward off the inevitable. It’s useless, though, because Grey is too excited.

“She’s back again, Mr. Kowalski,” says the teenaged shop assistant Jacob had had to hire after six months of steadily gaining popularity. The kid was a decent host, and he showed some real promise when it came to cookies and scones, but he really was quite the piece of work when it came to insolence.

“We have quite the number of regulars, Mr. Busko,” Jacob says mildly, keeping his gaze steadily on his hands, kneading the pastry dough. He’s turning red, but he figures he can blame it on an ill-ventilated kitchen during the summertime.

“She requested that she place her order with the master baker in charge,” Greyson tells him, cheerful and totally aware that Jacob’s embarrassed. He nudges his boss out of the way, taking over the precise kneading with unpracticed hands and leaves Jacob no choice but to clap off as much excess flour as he can manage and push back through the door towards the front of the shop, because they can’t just leave the place abandoned.

And there she is, the most beautiful girl in the world, leaning against the monel countertops, curling a lock of hair around one finger and smiling at him.

“Good morning, Mr. Kowalski,” she says sweetly, straightening up and aiming those eyes of hers right at him. “What have you got for me to try today?”

 _Marry me_ , Jacob thinks, just for a second, and her smile widens like she knows. “Franzbrötchen, with raisins and walnuts,” is what he says, pulling out a tray of them from behind the display.

“That sounds so _exotic_ ,” she tells him, leaning forward until he can smell the scent of her perfume. It’s different every single day, and Jacob has yet to smell one he doesn’t enjoy. “Tell me about it.”

She looks genuinely interested, like she always does, so he tells her about Germany’s response to the croissant, and about laminating the dough, and how his grandmother’s friend had been the one who’d taught her, and she’d passed it on to him.

Grey comes out, takes care of the line of customers that have built up while Jacob rambles about cold butter, seated across from her on the other end of a tiny round table.

Across from the shop there’s a blonde man in a dark blue coat, wearing an odd scarf around his neck. Jacob had sworn that he’d seen a pair of eyes blinking earlier, but no matter how closely he looks at it now, it just looks like a piece of strangely textured fabric.

Admittedly, he is a bit distracted by the most beautiful woman in the world, fluttering her eyelashes _at him_.

“Have a good day at work, Miss,” he says as gallantly as he can, and she pauses in stepping out into the crowded summer streets, putting a hand on his arm and leaning into his space again.

“Call me Queenie, Mr. Kowalski.” She tells him, her normal smile softer, somehow.

“Queenie,” he manages to say, before blinking and snapping out of it. “Call me Jacob, then,” he says.

She looks immeasurably pleased and Jacob can feel his ears getting hot again.

*

It’s another few weeks of similar visits, their chats over the counter transitioning smoothly into chats across from each other at the table as Greyson is forced to handle the breakfast rush mostly on his own. Jacob thinks it’s going pretty swell, thinks about wanting to marry her all the time, thinks she surely has a man she goes home to, as smart and funny and beautiful she is even more often.

He’s starting to make his peace with the pair of them being good friends—is even excited about it, since he _does_ enjoy her company quite a bit and realizes it’s no fault of her own that she may not find him, an average fellow with a knack for backing, as captivating as he finds her. He’s just thinking about maybe offering to see a film with her and some friends before Queenie comes in just before closing, her hair falling out of its usual flawless style. His display cases are nearly empty, and Jacob had sent Greyson home after the dinner rush.

There are only two customers still in there, sipping from near-empty mugs and reading the evening paper in separate corner plush chairs. One of them has a smoking briefcase sitting on the chair opposite him, but Jacob has been trying to get used to that, since the man shows up every few days, sometimes with _tentacles_ hanging out of his coat.

“Good evening, Miss Goldstein,” Jacob says. The blonde man with the briefcase looks up sharply, but Jacob scarcely notices, because Queenie grabs him by the apron, yanking him right up close.

“Do you carry a torch for me or not?” she all but demands. The man with the smoking briefcase stands and gathers up _what looks like a miniature scaled rhinoceros_ , and where the hell had that come from, and what the hell _was it?_ He rushes past them, head ducked low, but Jacob can swear he’s laughing as he hurries out of the shop.

Apparently his hesitation is too long, because she lets go of his apron and steps away, eyes flitting back and forth between his, that same strange expression she always gets crinkling her features.

“I would share my grandmother’s kołacz recipe with you,” Jacob blurts out, and that’s when he decides he shouldn’t be allowed to speak to women at all. The only thing he can be happy about is that Greyson had already left, because that teenaged menace would’ve never let him live that sentence down.

Thankfully, Queenie seems to look a little less angry with him, so Jacob tries to figure out how to communicate like an adult.

He takes one of her hands, thinks very hard about _not_ kissing her, strings together something like, “you—I—most beautiful _in the world_ —” and that’s about when Queenie hooks her fingers around the edges of his apron again, her grasp at once more gentle and firm.

There’s something familiar about her expression, that twisting, secretive smile, and Jacob doesn’t get more than a second to think about it before she’s kissing him. The shop bell rings, distantly, in the background, as the final patron of the night wisely decides to take his leave, and Queenie pulls him closer, uses her hands to guide his own to the curve of her waist, thumbs brushing over her ribs as he holds her.

When she pulls away, all of the memories are there in his head, slotted back in as though they’d never been taken, and she’s watching him with those eyes of hers, that same odd little smile on her face.

Only this time, he’s in on the secret.

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me at [rosalinesbenvolio](http://www.rosalinesbenvolio.tumblr.com)!!!


End file.
